#40 The Future of Marketing is...Social.

Audiences today do not want to be talked at. They want to be engaged in conversation. Social media gives us the power to do this, allowing us to define and control our brand. There is a shift from corporations and institutions to individuals and communities. Here are a few tips to take advantage of social media.

• Facebook. To help spread the word about a new campaign, why not ask employees to change their Facebook status to announce your latest campaign? If you have 20,000 employees, most likely 10,000 of them have Facebook. With the average person having 100 friends, your announcement could receive over 1 million impressions for free. Ask employees to include their LinkedIn Profiles – now you have 2 million impressions for free


• YouTube. Create a YouTube channel dedicated to teaching people more about your industry. This channel would feature a series of short, focused videos that educate your audience on related topics that help position you as an industry expert. The videos could highlight benefits and features of your products.


• Twitter. To help build and establish your company as an industry expert, top executives should create Twitter accounts to help position your company’s executives as thought leaders in the industry. Tweets should be business-related topics that talk about industry trends and forecasts. Zappos CEO has 1.6 million followers and is following almost 400K people. A total of 430 Zappos Employees have Twitter accounts. This presence helps Zappos engage and participate in conversations about their company.


• Flickr. Flickr is a great way to help promote events that your company sponsors. Photos can be optimized to show up in search results and increase brand awareness. Using Flickr to increase branding opportunities for KeyBank’s sponsorship of a 10K race, the Key “Bank to Bay” gallery has alone received 6,000 views following the event.

W6M: People visit social media sites every day, why not join them in what they are already doing?

#32 Talk and listen to your customers

From the past to the future, Best Buy CMO Barry Judge tells the story of how Best Buy's Marketing Capability talks (and listens) to its customers.

W6M: Digital is going to play a big role, but I am all about comprehensive campaigns. Some highlights from this video include:

• Talk with your clients, not to them
• Create an experience in stores, show them what they can do with your products
• Transparency builds trust
• Encourage employees to talk about their jobs

#31 Social Bookmarking in Plain English

A short explanation of the features and benefits of Social Bookmarking sites like Delicious.com. This video shows you how to keep all your favorite websites organized.

W6M: I know that I am a little behind the curve on this one. For those of you already in the know about Social Bookmarking, I apologize. If you are in the minority of people that have no clue what Social Bookmarking is you may want to check this video out. Then if you want, you can follow me on http://delicious.com/w6talent/.

At minimum you should visit delicious and see who is bookmarking your site.

#25 SlideShare is a Great Reference Tool

SlideShare is a presentation sharing website where users can upload, view and share presentation files.

W6M: Friends have been talking about it for a while now, but I really just started to pay closer attention to it. I think it is a great place to learn about current marketing trends and they have some great examples of the right way to create a PowerPoint presentation. Here are are couple good examples:

• Mind the Brand Gap
• What is Social Media
• Why does my brand need an iPhone App

Let us know if you find any presentations that you want to share.

#20 Social Media Map

Social media are the means for any person to: publish digital creative content; provide and obtain real-time feedback via on-line discussions, commentary, and evaluations; and incorporate changes or corrections to the original content.

W6M: A number of my posts talk about social media (YouTube, Facebook, Blogs, etc.). When I found this Social Media Map created by Overdrive Interactive, I thought I would include it for reference.

• When you create a viral video, the first site you think about uploading your video to is YouTube. But there are a dozen more Top Tier sites that you shoud also submit your video to.
• When you optimizing your site, people typically focus on Yahoo, Google and MSN. There are again a dozen more Top Tier sites that you should also try to get listed on. Your competition may be duking it out on Google, which would allow you to take over ask.com or dogpile.com.
• When you think Social Media, you want to create videos, get ranked on the search engines, blog, wiki and podcast. Try to take advantage of these and figure out what works best for you.

My advice would be to not focus on a single area or site, but get listed on as many possible.